Ever here of David Sanford? Me neither. It seems he’s an author or something. Anyway, he posted this today which is quite silly and awfully sad. It seems Davey grew up in a real life atheist family caricature. They were dogmatic believers in there not being gods, saw atheism as a no rules/ don’t obey anyone awesome fun time, and had a hatred for Christianity which lead them to disown poor Davey when he decided to join the Jesus club.

Now this is precisely why I put more of an emphasis on critical thinking than simply being an atheist, since there’s no skill involved in being an atheist. Any moron can simply wake up one day and not believe in gods just as he or she could wake up one morning believing in one. Likewise, both can make their choice by examining tea leaves, icicles, looking at the trees, or simply “feeling” they know. Now what both can’t do is leave faith and comparable irrational pursuits out and revisit the issue ending up with the same answers, for when you do so, god belief comes up short. Both atheism and theism can be arrived at via irrational thinking, but only atheism can be reached via critical, rational thought.

It was indeed unfortunate that Davey’s formative years were spent exposed to poor thinking, especially when it seems he’s embraced that inheritance. Could you imagine walking into your college classroom smugly convinced you’re right and know better and challenging your professors to change your mind? Yeah, there’s a great approach to education, which is why if his claim of “studying the great atheists over the past four centuries” is actually true, it was time wasted, like trying to pour water into a covered glass. Plus, the very idea of challenging your professor to convert you to atheism is simply absurd on yet another level.

So I left the following message for Davey on his blog. Maybe it’ll appear (moderation on a Christian blog is about as predictable as gravity, and you never know if your comment will appear, especially when it challenges the author).

Unfortunately, they let anyone breed and be parents.

That’s too bad your experiences, starting with your family, were so negative. If that was your only experience with atheism, then I can understand comments like:“For them, God’s non-existence was a matter of faith. It’s a faith I couldn’t accept.”However, you claim to have studied “the great atheists” of the last 4 centuries, and if you indeed had, then you’d know how ridiculous that comment was, on par with challenging your philosophy professor to convert you to atheism.

It seems then that the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. As aggressively narrow-minded and non-understanding as your family was, so too are you. I suppose all that alleged study is proof of one thing in the Christian bible, “cast not your pearls before swine”.

3299 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fyoumademesayit.com%2F2009%2F04%2F28%2Fboth-christians-and-atheists-can-be-irrational-idiots%2FBoth+Christians+and+atheists+can+be+irrational+idiots2009-04-28+14%3A51%3A00PhillyChiefhttp%3A%2F%2Fmagicanimation.com%2FYMMSI%2F%3Fp%3D329 to “Both Christians and atheists can be irrational idiots”

That’s funny, with the exception of the last paragraph of your response, you could almost copy that word for word from a moderate Christian’s response to a de-conversion story. The, “That’s too bad, you were never exposed to real Christianity…” response. A “no true scottsman” variation?

“Both atheism and theism can be arrived at via irrational thinking, but only atheism can be reached via critical, rational thought.”That’s a great point, Christians will explain all day how their faith is reasonable to believe and think that means that they have a rationally derived faith. I love Michael Shermer’s quote: “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.”

I’m not sad he wasn’t exposed to “real atheism”, but rather, proper critical thinking. If I didn’t make that perfectly clear in the post, then I hope I’ve done so now.

I agree with Shermer. The greater the intellect and the greater the ability to rationalize shit like wearing your lucky underpants to job interviews. I think it’s VERY hard to say “I don’t know”, to accept answers which you don’t like, and do what you don’t want to do, so it’s natural to try and get out of all that. That’s another reason why when challenged, people who do this often respond angrily.

The remark that “since there is no eternal consequences then there are no rules” is entirely incorrect because there are always natural consequences and risks that are causally linked to every action. Natural consequences, which includes manmade legal consequences, should be a deterrent enough for certain activities assuming people are reasonable and look to the statistics of the risks involved.

Christians should look at the Risky Behaviors and the real life consequences involved as opposed to dreaming up consequences that don’t really exist.

YouTube is a great example of the point you are making in this post, Philly. Go there and watch a couple dozen atheist vloggers and you will find some people who don’t seem to possess critical thinking. Other than the fact that they were at least bright enough to reason out that religions are full of shit, they don’t have much going for them. Not to say there are some fantastic atheist vloggers right along side them. Just that atheism guarantees nothing beyond – they don’t believe in gods.

Just to note: We should be somewhat skeptical about Sanford’s characterization of his family.

The only actual quotation he introduces is from his father: “”Don’t obey anyone… Don’t even obey me.” There are many interpretations of this position; much depends, for example, on how old Sanford was when his father said this to him. I’ve certainly told my children as older teenagers that they should view even my own pronouncements critically, and they have to make their own decisions about life.

It is very often the case that a person who makes a large-scale change will retrospectively view their own life and circumstances prior to the change in an absolutely negative light.

It is necessary to become evil in order to eradicate evil. Though it was highly objectionable to associate such language with atheists or Christians or any human being yet the language used by the writer was also very indecent and unethical.